Review: Winterwood

Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Winterwood is Shea Ernshaw's sophomore YA novel and it builds on the impressive debut of The Wicked Deep. Her writing continues to shimmer and convey eerieness all at once. The story of Nora Walker is that of a young woman at the end of a long line of witchy women. The women of her family have magical gifts but Nora's mother has eschewed them and her beloved grandmother passed away before Nora found her own and thus she lives rather unmoored from what she views as her family's past and traditions. She lives at the edge of the Wicker Woods, a dark and scary place, and has for years traveled through the wood collecting odds and ends that have been left behind by people who, for all we know, have been eaten by the woods. One winter day when traversing the Wicker Woods she finds a young man, half dead and frozen, and helps him back to her cottage. She quickly realizes that Oliver is the boy missing from a nearby Camp for Wayward Boys. Her puzzlement and questions quickly mount. What was he doing in the Wicker Woods? How did he survive for almost two weeks on his own? Why, when she guides him back, is he virtually unseen by his peers and the camp staff? And boys at the camp have questions about Nora, too. Is she a witch? What terrible things can this lonely young woman do? Will Oliver prove key to discovering what her Walker gift is?

Winterwood is a lovely, atmospheric book that reads like a modern fairy tale. It's a story that haunts you in some respects, for you feel Nora's loneliness keenly. Ernshaw is proving quite adept at drawing the reader into her eerie communities, where those who live on the margins with their magic thrive.

A lovely audiobook, narrated by Emma Lysy and Mark Turetsky.

I received an Advanced Review Copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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